Right, there's been a lot of questions regarding this lately - or rather, overall throughout the history of Carbonite... or at least since Carbonite Nodes was first implemented... but you get the point. So, here's a little 101 on how to use this.

Table of contents:
-Part 1: What's Carbonite Nodes?
--What does it do?
--How do I use it?
--What's different?
--This addon is wrong, I went to a spot marked on the map, but there was no mineral / herb there!
-Part 2: What's routing?
--How do I access the routing function?
--I tried to Route Current Gather Locations, but it doesn't do anything!
--What if I don't want to go to one of the targets? Maybe it's misplaced, out of reach, or too close for comfort to an outpost of the other faction?
--How can I route only one or a few nodes? I only want some herbs or minerals.
--I've found some mining nodes don't contain what Carbonite says.
--What options can I adjust in routing?

Part 1: What's Carbonite Nodes?
Carbonite Nodes is a database of most - say 98% - of the possible spawn points for herbs and minerals in the game. Using it is completely optional, Carbonite runs fine without it, and you only need to use it once.

What does it do?
Simply put, it updates your Carbonite map with the location of possible gathering spawn points, including Frostchip, gas clouds, and those kinds of things. It's a one way process, mind you, but there's of course nothing to lose by using it.

How do I use it?
First, like any addon, you need to activate it in the Addons section when you select your character, like so:

Next, you import the nodes via the Carbonite options menu. I assume you know how to get it up.

After that, you're good to go. The import can take a while, depending on how fast your computer is, but it generally takes less than a few seconds. And you're done! You can now log out and deactivate CarboniteNodes if you wish, or leave it running. It's only a database accessed on demand by Carbonite, so it costs no resources whatsoever, nor does it do anything without your specific orders.

What's different?
Right, so let's open up the right-click menu on your map. Select Show... and then check either Show Herb Locations or Show Mining Locations, or both if you want.

All of a sudden, your map could look like this:

This is with herbs being shown.

This addon is wrong, I went to a spot marked on the map, but there was no mineral / herb there!
This is something that often comes up. The truth is, Carbonite doesn't know where the actual nodes are in the world. No addon does. All it does is show you where they can be. Not all icons marked "Plaguebloom" will have a Plaguebloom node there once you get there, but Carbonite shows all the known locations where the game can spawn them.

See, the game has a fixed place for all possible spawn points. When a herb spawns, one of those spawn points are chosen. A Plaguebloom can spawn on any of the Plaguebloom spawn points, but it will NEVER spawn on a Silverleaf spawn point.

As for knowing whether a herb or mining node has spawned, you'll have to travel there and see for yourself. Tedious, I know, but that's the only way you'll know. And that's what routing is for.

Part 2: What's routing?

Routing in Carbonite is, simply put, the addon calculating the most efficient* way of visiting each and every one of the selected places.

*Most efficient is a relative term. Carbonite calculates on what would be the shortest route (in terms of yards traveled) to visit all places it routes you through, from a bird's point of view. In other words, what looks shortest on the map. This does not take into account lakes, mountains, settlements of the opposite faction, or anything else terrain-related. Implementing such an advanced algorithm would be difficult and time-consuming, and hopefully you're not too lazy to use some common sense while wandering around.

Carbonite can route three different things. Gather locations, which is what we will talk about, goto targets, and unexplored areas in your current zone.

How do I access the routing function?
By right clicking on your map, then select Route... and what you wish to route.

I tried to Route Current Gather Locations, but it doesn't do anything!
Do you have any gather locations on the map? Follow the above instruction on the Show... menu to show either herbs or mineral nodes. Then try routing again.

Once it's done, it'll look something like this:

You'll also have the HUD arrow pointing you in the direction of the next route target.

What if I don't want to go to one of the targets? Maybe it's misplaced, out of reach, or too close for comfort to an outpost of the other faction?
There's a hotkey you can set for that in the Key Bindings section.

When Carbonite tells you to go to a node that you want to skip, hit that hotkey and Carb will instruct you how to get to the next.

How can I route only one or a few nodes? I only want some herbs or minerals.
That's fairly easy as well. You begin by deselecting both mining and herbalism locations in the Show... menu we talked about earlier. Then you click the Guide button on your Carbonite map, go to Gather, select if you want herbs or minerals, and then pick the one you're looking for. OBSERVE, you need to click on the icon, clicking the text won't work. If you look on your map, icons for that herb or mineral alone will pop up. You can hold the SHIFT button and click more icons if you want to include them.
((--Image yet to come--))

After that, you right click the map, select Route... and Current Gather Locations. Viola.

I've found some mining nodes don't contain what Carbonite says.
You've probably found a rare spawn. The way the game works when respawning nodes is that there's a small chance a rarer mineral will spawn on a certain other node's location. This is the complete list:

Silver is a rare spawn from Tin nodes.Gold is a rare spawn from Iron nodes.Truesilver is a rare spawn from Mithril nodes.Eternium is a rare drop from all Outland veins.Khorium is a rare spawn from all Outland veins.Saronite and Titanium share spawn points.

Simply put, if you want to farm Silver, track Tin and route through them. If you want Titanium, route through both Saronite and Titanium spawn points.

What options can I adjust in routing?
Well, all of them are in the routing submenu. Note that each of these are calculated at the routing itself, so if you set Target Radius to 30 from 60 while following a routing, your current routing will still require you to get within 60 yards, but the next one you do will be 30.

Recycle Reached Targets - this tells Carbonite to spin you right round, baby, right round... like a record, baby. Right round, round, round. Ahem. Well, say you route through all the Mining nodes in Elwynn Forest. Once you're done, Recycle Reached Targets will send you around the cycle again, and again, until you right click the map and clear the goto targets.Gather Target Radius - this is the distance, in yards, you will need to be within before Carbonite considers you to be at the currently tracked node and sends you on to the next. Default is 60 yards. NOTE: When tracking minerals or herbs, they appear as the yellow dots on your minimap at 80 yards or below. But don't forget to take into account latency and map update frequency. I recommend 60 if your latency is usually fine, as in 100 or less, and 40 if you often find yourself with a latency of about 500-600.Gather Merge Radius - tells Carbonite at which radius it shouldn't route you to a node close to an existing target. Having it at 20 means that if I route Mining nodes, and there's a possible Tin spawn 15 yards away from a possible Copper spawn, Carbonite will only tell me to go to a spot right in between those (thanks to faatal for that info).

End of guide, so far. Hopefully this will answer most of the community's question about Carbonite Nodes and routing. There's one picture I still need to update with, but it will be done as soon as humanly possible.

Feel free to use this thread to ask questions you feel have not been answered, correct any misinformation that could have snuck aboard, or suggest improvements to the guide.

I'm not really qualified to answer that question, but I'd guess no. It would require a map that is in 3D in order to record it, which would put extra strain on CPU and GPU, not to mention being one mother of a hassle for any coder attempting it...

First, I want to say that Jigain has done a very good job of presenting information that can help clear-up confusion for many users. His graphical approach works for me, since I'm a now-retired Commercial Artist/Technical Illustrator.

Here's why I'm writing. It's basically a question.

-- My Carbonite mini-map shows my route to nodes.

-- I use my flying mount to travel between nodes. (It's not a FAST flying mount, either).

-- HOW I USE ROUTING: The only place I can see if a node actually exists is on Blizzard's (round) mini-map, therefore I have to keep looking at it to see if any "yellow" dots show up. The Carbonite mini-map or full map doesn't display "real" nodes... only previously-reported node (possible) locations.

-- PROBLEM: By the time Blizzard's mini-map displays the "yellow" dot for an active node, I have already flown past it! It's "range" is apparently too narrow to display the node long before I approach it. It's really frustrating to have to circle-back continually after each node is found.

Is my problem caused by a slow internet connection (or, something else), or do any of you notice the same thing when flying from node-to-node?

I'd love to be able to "see nodes further ahead" instead of after I've passed them by. Heh heh.

-- PROBLEM: By the time Blizzard's mini-map displays the "yellow" dot for an active node, I have already flown past it! It's "range" is apparently too narrow to display the node long before I approach it. It's really frustrating to have to circle-back continually after each node is found.

Is my problem caused by a slow internet connection (or, something else), or do any of you notice the same thing when flying from node-to-node?

The biggest factors in that would be your internet connection or your computer. Lag has a big impact on what data goes to and from your computer and then the computer also has to process that data to display it to you. Just so you know for reference also, I believe the max range you can actually "see" an active node on the Blizz map is 75yds.

Hey, was wondering how i get the gas clouds tracking and routing to work, the herbalism and mining parts work perfect for me, but i just cant figure out how to make it show, track, or route gas clouds.

Vis, I can say after extensive testing that the radius for Blizzard's tracking system is 80 yards. No more, no less.

Fenix`, first you need to right click your map and deselect the Show Herbs and Show Mining Locations. Then, you open your Guide, select Gather, and pick one of the two, or both, outside of the Herbs and Minerals subsections. After that it's the same as before, right click the map and Route... Current Gather Locations. Please note that, due to lack of collected data as to where gas clouds and everfrost chips spawns, the database does not contain these locations (to my knowledge). Thus, it'll only route you through places where you have previously found gas clouds and/or everfrost chips.

Sorry if this has already been asked but I don't see it elsewhere...
I am wanting to know if I can track active nodes in Carbonite... and if so, how??
It's saves the waypoints for all of the mines/herbs I collect but I cannot find an option to track with it so that the "yellow dot" appears when the node is actually there.

The only way I have been able to do this is to move the mini-map into carbonite and dock it always. However I cannot re-size the mini map to my liking when I do this and would prefer to just track the active nodesnodes in carbonites mini map. Can someone tell me if this is possible to do?
Thanks in advance!!!

If you mean make Carbonite route you through only nodes that currently exist in the world, that's impossible. For obvious reasons, Blizzard doesn't allow addons access to that kind of information.

If you mean overlap the Carbonite icon for the herb/mine with the yellow dot Blizzard shows when you're within 80 yards, then that can only be accomplished by merging the Carbonite map with the Blizzard minimap.

I meant within 80 yards If I have to merge the maps, is there any way to be able to add an option for resizing the blizz mini once it is merged? What I'm wanting is that when I load Blizz's mini map into cartographers, that it takes up the whole area with the same resizing capability.... Is that possible? hope I'm making sense because I'm not sure of a better way to explain it... once again thanks for the help =D

Yes I ment carbonite sorry was a very late night I could not find scaling options as to height or width separately... I took a Screen shot of My carbonite in my NUI with the Blizz mini docked set to square and scaled to size... Blizz mini is left and carbonite is right.... but I still cannot find a setting that allows it to take up the entire space; rectangularly... having them side by side is nice as well but would be nicer if carbonite could re-center itself to its viewable area. any ideas?
Merging does at least allow me to track active nodes within the 80 yds now.
Thanks Again!!!

You talk about setting options to mine TIN only for example. How do you do this? How can you display only tin nodes and set routes for only tin?

"Simply put, if you want to farm Silver, track Tin and route through them. If you want Titanium, route through both Saronite and Titanium spawn points"

You answer that in your own quote, actually:

Originally Posted by Jigain

How can I route only one or a few nodes? I only want some herbs or minerals.
That's fairly easy as well. You begin by deselecting both mining and herbalism locations in the Show... menu we talked about earlier. Then you click the Guide button on your Carbonite map, go to Gather, select if you want herbs or minerals, and then pick the one you're looking for. OBSERVE, you need to click on the icon, clicking the text won't work. If you look on your map, icons for that herb or mineral alone will pop up. You can hold the SHIFT button and click more icons if you want to include them.
((--Image yet to come--))

After that, you right click the map, select Route... and Current Gather Locations. Viola.

You talk about setting options to mine TIN only for example. How do you do this? How can you display only tin nodes and set routes for only tin?

Well, first off, there's no such thing as a Tin ONLY node. In fact, there are very few nodes that are ONLY one type (copper nodes are, I think). Most nodes can pop at least two metals, if not three (not sure about three, but very sure about two).